Using attribute-managed storage to achieve QoS

Specification of storage systems by means of user-oriented Quality-of-Service attributes is the key to ease of use and efficient resource utilization. Attribute-managed storage systems hide details of the underlying storage systems through virtual store abstractions—units of storage with quality of service guarantees. The mapping of virtual stores onto physical storage devices can be optimized to achieve high level goals such as balancing system performance against total system cost. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach with a prototype matching engine called Forum.